Our Whatsapp Uncle

    There has been a plethora of take-aways from  Monday night's presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump and the commentary is still rolling in.
     To me one of the more interesting media responses was to be found yesterday on Scroll.in, a daily website that publishes the political and cultural news of India, in an article entitled, "Donald Trump Proved In US Presidential Debate That He Is Basically  A WhatsApp Uncle".
     Now, in India the terms "Uncle" and "Aunty" are terms of respect used to address or refer to an old person, not necessarily one's own aunt or uncle.  So for example, if a younger person on a bus in Mumbai were to offer their seat to an old man they might say, "Here, have a seat, Uncle."  Or if I were in India I expect I would be called "Aunty" everywhere I went.  Actually I think that would be kind of nice.  I kind of wish everyone here would call me "Aunty".   I think I'd like that.
      But I digress.
       So anyway, the term "Uncle" in India refers to a male senior citizen.
      As for WhatsApp, I frankly had never heard the word before, but that's probably because I'm a technology troglodyte who's never current on anything.  So for the benefit of my fellow troglodytes here's an explanation of the term that I found on Webwise:
           WhatsApp is a free to download messenger app for smartphones. WhatsApp uses the          internet to send messages, images, audio or video. The service is very similar to text messaging services however, because WhatsApp uses the internet to send messages, the cost of using WhatsApp is significantly less than texting. It is popular with teenagers because of features like group chatting, voice messages and location sharing.
       According to the author of the Scroll.in article, a WhatsApp Uncle is a particular kind of old guy who has certain propensities:
        You know WhatsApp uncles, right? They're always messaging, frequently interrupting other people's conversations, happy to send questionable jokes and blatantly misogynistic or racist content, praising the nation while also slamming some subset within the nation, constantly peddling conspiracy theories about the rest of the world and they do not like being called out on their positions.
        Apparently they know all about WhatsApp Uncles in India.
      And now, thanks to one of our  Presidential candidates, we in the States have our own national WhatsApp Uncle,      

...who whined, ranted, interrupted,lied, snuffled, and performed overall abysmally at his first presidential debate but who's still going strong as ever in the general election and swing state polls.
    What's up  with that?

References:

http://www.stabroeknews.com/2016/opinion/letters/02/13/indians-use-aunty-uncle-terms-respect-world/

http://www.webwise.ie/parents/explainer-whatsapp/

https://www.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump-proved-us-presidential-061500925.html